Drawing: 2 men with a lizard on table between them. Man on left wears headlamp and holds large nail up to lizard's head; man on right holds lizard's tail with one hand, and a large mallet raised in the other.
THE CONDITIONED RESPONSE
dick beeler
Case 8, Ayan P., male, age 29 months.
Ayan was playing along in a play-pen, when a bushel basket containing salamanders, newts, Gila Monsters, and fresh earthworms was dumped on his head. He laughed and gurgled happily while holding a lethargic newt by the tail and beating its brains out on the edge of the pen.
The pen was then cleaned out and disinfected, and the process was repeated with an added stimulus. The stimulus was an electric egg beater held in close contact with the subject's left ear. This time Ayan screamed and seized a Gila Monster by the right foreleg. The Monster bit him deeply about the hand and arm while the eggbeater, unfortunately, amputated his ear. As Ayan suffered severely from shock and loss of blood, it was deemed inadvisable to continue the experiment at this time.
When Ayan came out of his coma, he was immediately rushed to the laboratory for continuation of the experiment. The fact that he was deaf in one ear and paralyzed from the elbow down, can be discounted in the net result, as the functions of these members doesn't play a vital role in the experiment anyhow.
As soon as the experimenter appeared with the bushel of lower chordates, Ayan screamed, turned blue in the face and fell over on his left side in a dead faint. This is highly significant, as Ayan is definitely right handed, and also, this shows his first neutral to positive evidence of fear.
Ayan was revived and the experiment continued. This time the stimulus took the form of twin jets of household ammonia shot into his eyes, plus the driving of a railroad spike into his skull, simultaneously with the application of a rip saw to his lower shinbone.
(Continued on page 18)
- 11 -